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Willes: CFL owners’ potential cash grab could spark a war with players

The league is more lucrative than it’s ever been, but with CBA negotiations teetering, the season is at risk

B.C. Lions kicker Paul McCallum, who’s also the team’s player representative, says the players have made plenty of concessions for the betterment of the league in the past, and it’s time the league and owners do the same for the players.

Photograph by: John Woods
, Postmedia News

As a newly retired player, Angus Reid is no longer financially invested in the CFL’s collective-bargaining agreement, but as someone who spent 13 seasons in the Canadian game, his emotional investment in the current negotiations is considerable.

Reid was asked about the impasse between the league and the CFL Players Association — a battle which is threatening the start of the season.

“The players have always taken whatever means necessary to keep this league going,” said the Lions former centre. “It was always the players having to absorb the hits.

“Here’s the truth: The players have never had this kind of leverage. We’ve always been in a position where the league was fragile. If we back down now, we’ll never win a fight. If we don’t do it this time, it’s a dangerous precedent.”

With that, the CFL has finally entered the modern world of sports business, and if the league’s innocence is lost, it’s because so much is to be gained from the new CBA for both parties.

While the two sides aren’t exactly at the crisis stage just yet, the lines have been drawn between the CFL and the players’ union, and neither side is expressing any optimism about the process. OK, they’re not really expressing anything publicly, but you don’t have to be Marvin Miller to look at the league’s current state and understand there’s been a seismic change in the CFL both on and off the field.

This is the first year of a staggering new five-year TV deal with TSN worth approximately $180 million, a figure that more than doubles the previous agreement. There’s a new team in Ottawa with a newly renovated Landsdowne Park. There are new stadiums in Winnipeg and Hamilton and discussions for new facilities in Regina and Toronto. McMahon Stadium in Calgary is undergoing a facelift. Franchise values have increased dramatically.

Add it all up, and virtually every conceivable sign points to a business that’s not only experiencing unprecedented stability, it’s experiencing unprecedented growth.

That, however, is only part of the story.

The CFL hasn’t always been this way — which is putting it mildly — and, as Reid suggested, there’s a complicated history between the league and the players. The current generation has been spared the indignities of salary cuts and other cost-saving measures, but that’s part of this narrative. So are previous negotiations in which the CFLPA didn’t press matters for fear of upsetting the league’s delicate financial balance. So is the league’s prevailing attitude towards the PA, which can loosely be described as dismissive.

But not this time. The PA isn’t commenting on current negotiations, but there are early warning signs they’re prepared for a fight. Union president Scott Flory just retired from the Montreal Alouettes and assumes the position on a full-time basis. He’s already said the players won’t play this season under anything like the existing deal.

The CBA, meanwhile, expires on the eve of training camps, and thus far, there’s been little progress towards a new agreement. Talks in March were cancelled after one day. Other meetings were cancelled later that month. Negotiations in April were “not much better but there was a little give,” according to Stamps player rep Keon Raymond.

Further talks are scheduled for next week.

“We’ve worked with the league in the past,” said Paul McCallum, who’s the Lions’ player rep along with Rolly Lumbala.

“We want them to work with us now.”

That’s proving to be difficult. The players want a system that links the salary cap to league revenues, which is the model in every major sports league in North America. The owners? Not so much.

Their initial offers, in fact, included modest raises to the existing cap. They’re also asking for a longer working day — the existing CBA calls for players to be available for 4-1/2 hours per day, which is largely a joke, anyway — and two-way contracts between the active and practice rosters.

You can guess what the players think of that.

The PA, for its part, has always been reasonable, and it’s not like they’re asking for the moon this time. But the business of the league has clearly changed and they want a CBA which reflects that change.

That number — 50 per cent of revenues, 52 per cent, 54 per cent, whatever — can be determined through negotiating, but first it has to start with the league acknowledging the changing landscape as well as the players’ past concessions.

The joke, of course, is it would just be like the CFL to shoot itself in the foot when things are finally going its way. But this isn’t a laughing matter. The league’s future hinges on these negotiations, and if the owners want to treat it as a cash grab, things will get ugly.

“I think it is a simple thing,” said Reid. “Everything about this league is moving forward and the players don’t want to be left behind. And it’s not like we want to jump forward. We want to step forward.”

Sounds reasonable, but it takes two reasonable parties to make a deal.

B.C. Lions kicker Paul McCallum, who’s also the team’s player representative, says the players have made plenty of concessions for the betterment of the league in the past, and it’s time the league and owners do the same for the players.